Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-07-06

Sewer, Potts & Co.; Ivison. Brakeman,
Taylor & Co.; Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co.;
y. Appleton s. Co.; A. s. Barnes & Co.; T.
II. Butler & Co.; J. B. Lippincott & Co.;
Sheldon & Co.; Clark & Maynard; Prang
Educational Company; CHM, Heath & Co;
Leach, Shewell & sanborn; Cowperthwaite
& Co.; Taintor Bros; Merrill & Co.; Uni
versity Publishing Company; Potter &
Ainsworth, and Thompson, Brown & Co.
All these are book publishers, they "cov-
ered' nearly all school-books used in Cali
fornia in 1884 The compact bound the
firms
/. Not to seek to displace the books of
any of the syndicate.
,. Not to oppose the introduction of any
book of the conspirators.
8. Not to point out errors in each others
books.
l. To offer no books in competition with
each other; not even to present better
book against an inferior one, already in
use.
5. To give prices against book in use,
only when solicited, and to furnish books
for examination as against those in use
only when requested.
6. To mutually fight hooks not repre-
sented in the ring.
I. If any of the ring should displace a
ring book, the displaced publisher was to
receive the profits on the new book for
three years. and these profits were fixed
exorbitantly high in order to make the
penalty effectively severe.
s. That the measure of assessing the
penalties should be 81 so for every 800
inhabitants.
Under this beautiful system of pooled
competition, Sewer, Potts & Co.'S Normal
Union Arithmetic displaced Robinsons
Arithmetic in Sacramento the city being
given the census measure of population
5000, too low, Sewer, Potts & Co. were
adjudged to pay to Ivison, Brakeman, Tay-
lor q Co. the sum of S525.
Under this ring-pooling compact, what
chance had the people to secure books at
low, competitive figures, or good books
Yet this is but single instance of the ras-
cally swindles the & competing" book pub
fishers put up on the people of Califor-
MIA. Says the Chronicle:
The Independent book firms have the whole
lea! hangeTs-on to feed they do not keep men
on their payroll in fictitious positions, or as a
reward for work done at the polls or in the
wards, and consequently they can get up their
books at bedrock Prices and these prices with
fair margin of profit added, could be obtained
by the State OF California.
1t will cause the political bosses and old
School Directors to smile grimly to learn
from our contemporary that the book
houses had no political hangers-on; that
they had no pay-rolls for unseen workers,
and all that. The bloodless humor of this
assertion is enough to make even book
agent shudder
"Of course the State may. IL it so elects supply
pupils with books costing y cents for 40 cents,
atty does not alter the facts of the case that
the cost OF the books must be borne by general
taxation. and that systematic att mpt has been
made to cover up the defects of the whole
system."
VIII the Chronicle undertake to name a
single one of the textbooks issued that
costs the State ~ cents which it is selling
for 40 cents? If it has knowledge of such
transactions it is in duty bound to disclose
it. The truth is, the innuendo which but
recently the Chronicle phrased as direct
charge is a fat falsebood. By aggregating
the entire cost of plant, compilation, edit
ing, type-setting, electrotyping, engraving,
stock and binding, and dividing the sum
by the number of the preliminary edition
| published, the Chronicle gets the result 70.
But Will il contribute from its mathemat-
ical knowledge its idea of the cost of the
next and subsequent editions for all the
years to come during which the plates and
machinery will remain good, and in which
there will appear only the items of cost FOR
paper, press-work and binding?